Does your Dep. frown on military reserves?

[FirstDue52]

I ask this question because I have been working for a department for four years as a seasonal firefighter employee and have been thinking about joining the reserves as a corpsman. (will have my NREMT-P soon) I am on several lists with departments in my state and constantly turning in apps. Does anyone have any advice? Much appreciated.

[fire49]

wait till you get a full time job and have been there at least a year!!!!!!!!!!

one so you have a permenant postion and you may change your mind once you have a full time job

[jccrabby3084]

wait till you get a full time job and have been there at least a year!!!!!!!!!!

one so you have a permenant postion and you may change your mind once you have a full time job

I agree with this point. It really doesn't matter if a dept frowns on reserves or not, it is the law that you be allowed to drill and majority of career depts have language about how reservists are handled. So if you want to go reserves, it shouldn't be a deterent for a dept.

However, if not already on the dept, a dept has no obligation to make amends for you because you are a reservist. This means if you are looking for a career firefighting job, don't expect that you can take a written test at a different time, or physical agility etc. If you miss such parts of a hiring process, there is a chance you won't move on.

Also, if you do decide to go reserves, you should know that boot camp is still 8 weeks and that isn't including processing days or waiting for orders etc, which means you could be in training longer than the typical 8 weeks. After boot camp, you go directly for the schooling for whatever job you will be doing. Since you are talking Corpsman, this would mean you would go to Great Lakes for boot and then next door to the NTC for Corpsman for however long that school is.

This would mean you would be missing out on testing opportunities and so forth. Then there is a strong possibility of being deployed for a year or longer, which again limits where and when you can apply.


Paramedic is a huge plus for many depts out there. If you already have fire certs and paramedic, you may have a good chance of getting on a dept. It is up to you what you want to do, but if you do want reserves, make sure you really understand the committment involved and the risks you are taking.